The ‘Iran Deal’ Was Never the Solution to the Regime’s Nuclear Program

By Rebeccah Heinrichs

Wednesday, March 25, 2026

 

We are a mere three weeks into Operation Epic Fury, but with the “doomerism” coming out of a large segment of the professional national security world, you’d think we were a decade into a catastrophic, spiraling world war and on the precipice of a global economic recession.

 

In actuality, the United States and Israel are militarily crushing the Iranians, the Arab world is siding with America and condemning Iran, and the Europeans are leaning toward actively helping the United States secure the Strait of Hormuz.

 

The Iranian air force and navy are smoldering in rubble. The United States is mercilessly bombing  Iranian underground missile factories so that, years from now, if there are enough people still alive who know how to make them, they won’t be able to. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who claimed to be the leader of the Islamic world, was killed on the first day of Epic Fury, and his son, crowned the new supreme leader, is either dead or otherwise incapacitated. He has not appeared publicly. The Israelis have eliminated the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the regime’s military police force, the Basij. These evil officials were the most competent at and responsible for arming and equipping terrorists, defending the regime, and repressing the Iranian people.

 

The worst-case-scenario predictions about Iran’s possible retaliations against America have not materialized. There have not been thousands of American deaths (there have, tragically, been 13 service member deaths, due mostly to accidents). As the operation goes on, the tempo of Iranian missile and drone strikes continue to decrease, with some periodic spikes. And Iran’s economy, already squeezed by American and European sanctions, is experiencing even greater degrees of distress. Even so, the mere threat of Iranian attacks against shipping in the vital Strait of Hormuz gives the flailing terrorist regime leverage to wield against the world’s superpower.

 

No analyst, no matter how well-informed and equipped with the best historical case studies, can predict with high confidence how this war will end. Will the regime utterly collapse or be sufficiently weakened so that a more pragmatic leader complies with U.S. demands? It’s impossible to know. This war is unprecedented in the overmatch of American-Israeli capabilities and military competency against a shockingly weaker enemy whose strongest backers have mostly decided against helping it (with the important exception of Russia’s reported willingness to aid Iran in targeting). That said, until the Strait of Hormuz is secure, and the Iranian drones and missiles stop soaring, the war isn’t over. Still, the extensive progress of the military campaign so far has not stopped the most ardent critics of the war from predicting — with the utmost confidence — that it will end in catastrophe for America and its allies.

 

Many national security pundits tell us that, despite America’s overwhelming success in destroying thousands of targets on the campaign’s list, the Iranians are winning the war.

 

We’re told that despite the United States’ destruction of Iranian cruise missile sites along the strait’s coastline and the elimination of their mine-dropping ships, there’s nothing the United States can do to stop the regime from holding the strait hostage.

 

They say that the United States’ successful bombing campaign and Israeli targeted strikes against regime leaders have only strengthened the Islamic Republic’s fanaticism and resolve.

 

We are told that, even though the tempo of the Iranian missile and drone launches has dramatically decreased, the Iranians have surprises up their sleeves and are holding back the best capabilities and about to unleash massive, and more precise, strikes (the same argument espoused by Iran’s state media propaganda).

 

We’re told the regime leaders who were renowned for their ruthless repression and terrorism, when eliminated, will be replaced by Islamist radicals who are far more hardened, more willing to take risks, and more dangerous, and that even though the Islamic Republic’s top nuclear scientists have been eliminated, new nuclear scientists will appear and accelerate the nuclear weapons program with abandon. We’re told that the Iranians will rebuild their missiles and drones and that the United States is woefully unable to replenish its stocks.

 

No matter how much the United States and Israel achieve everything on their to-do list, no matter the clearly explained military objectives, strategy, and success of the endeavor, the end is still somehow a humiliating defeat for President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

 

The architect of the Obama administration’s echo chamber, Ben Rhodes, has been the most insightful when trying to divine the meaning behind the fact-defying “doomerism.” He recently posted on X: “As with Iraq, the problem is not the strategy or tactics of the Iran war. It’s the decision to fight an unnecessary war in the first place.”

 

The reality is, many of the loudest critics are wedded to the fiction that the 2015 Iran deal was the solution to the terrorist state’s nuclear weapons work, that it shielded Iran from U.S. and Israeli military intervention, thereby keeping the United States from entering a war it would lose.

 

But even the Iran deal’s biggest defenders must admit that it uncorked billions of dollars in sanctions relief to the terrorist regime, even though it didn’t meet the criteria for a “good deal” set out by the Obama administration at the start of negotiations. It didn’t have “anywhere, anytime” inspections (rather, it provided Iran with a heads-up and a delay before inspections, allowing Iran to hide activity); it required cooperation from Russians and the Chinese for full snapback sanctions; it didn’t restrain its missile program (it shockingly relaxed sanctions on its missile program, to the dismay of senators); and it had sunset provisions.

 

Senator Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) outlined some of the deal’s merits and its shortcomings in his explanation for why he opposed Obama’s deal. As he explained, the defenders insisted that the “imperfect” deal was better than no deal because the alternative was necessarily war.

 

This was the central claim of Ben Rhodes’s echo chamber: the Obama Iran deal or disastrous war. Why? As Schumer explained, this false choice relied on the logic that the Iran deal would moderate the regime, and without it, the regime would not change, inevitably leading to a high-cost clash with the West.

 

Schumer wrote:

 

If one thinks Iran will moderate, that contact with the West and a decrease in economic and political isolation will soften Iran’s hardline positions, one should approve the agreement.  After all, a moderate Iran is less likely to exploit holes in the inspection and sanctions regime, is less likely to seek to become a threshold nuclear power after ten years, and is more likely to use its newfound resources for domestic growth, not international adventurism.

 

But if one feels that Iranian leaders will not moderate and their unstated but very real goal is to get relief from the onerous sanctions, while still retaining their nuclear ambitions and their ability to increase belligerent activities in the Middle East and elsewhere, then one should conclude that it would be better not to approve this agreement.

 

Schumer was right then to reject the deal. Within a year of the agreement being finalized, reports indicated that Iran was busy on clandestine nuclear-related work while using billions of dollars in sanctions relief for funding, training, and supplying Islamist proxies around the region. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis were all well-resourced at the expense of American, European, and Gulf security — not to mention the long-suffering Iranian people.

 

President Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA in 2018 for the same reasons Senator Schumer opposed it, and he immediately reimposed sanctions on the regime to dry up its funds and slow down its aggression and dangerous missile development.

 

But the echo chamber that was so active during the Obama administration is active now, still insisting on pushing the myth that the choices were the Iran deal or a doomed war that a supposedly resilient, formidable, and adaptable Iran regime would win. Today, those echoing the myth blame Trump and Netanyahu for the war, not Iran’s supreme leader or the IRGC for amassing thousands of missiles, advancing its nuclear program and lying to inspectors, and not the Basij for massacring tens of thousands of Iranian protesters, thereby proving the hardened, radical nature of the inhumane regime.

 

Operation Epic Fury is crushing the Iran regime and destroying its ability to threaten U.S. interests. In directing the campaign, Trump is bursting the myth of the loud and determined echo chamber.